The layer of this week is the first layer that has been published on our Augmented Reality platform which has 3D texture animations. Quiznos, a big fast food restaurant in the United States and Canada, is specialized in toasted sandwiches used the Layar platform for their campaign. The Quiznos layer includes a store locator, several videos, animated 3D and location based coupons. We talked to Mathijs Gajentaan from Winvolve who developed this layer for Quiznos.

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How did you manage to get a brand this big on board?
First and foremost: Showing them what’s possible. At the outset of most projects, our clients will have an idea of what they want to achieve. But when we’re given the opportunity to unleash our passion for our technology and really show them what’s possible, that’s typically when great things happen. Ultimately it is those case studies that help us attract new clients.

Was Quinzos familiar with the Layar concept?
They were keen on AR, and found Layar to be the perfect solution.

What is the added value of this layer for Quiznos?
For this question I asked Quiznos for a quote because they can explain the added value for Quiznos the best

Tim Kraus, Interactive Marketing Manager Quiznos: “The added value of Layar to Quiznos is keeping our brand relevant. As more people use their smart phones to connect with their world, we need to make sure we have a presence in that world without appearing spammy. Location Based apps like Layar is a great fit for Quiznos. In addition, this app allows us to pull in people from demographics we may not have targeted before.”

Your worlds first with 3D animation within a Layar. Was it hard to realize this?
We really saw this as a great opportunity. Our animation specialists worked on Movies, Games and Architecture before and were very excited and motivated to develop something amazing using 3D models and animations for the Layar platform. On the technical implementation side we also recieved help from our partner Hoppala.eu.

What can we expect from Winvolve in the near future?
Important for us is helping people develop a better understanding of Augmented Reality technology and its possibilities. You can expect us to play a role in that through projects that educate and inspire.

We’re very honored that one of the worlds biggest rock bands did their augmented reality campaign on the Layar platform. The layer is the first of it’s kind in the world and was built by Augment Reality in conjunction with Polydor Records to celebrate the succe­­ss of the recently re-released Stones’ masterpiece Exile on Main St. Stones fans will able to fly-post their streets, homes or offices with virtual interactive posters of the rock icons. We talked to Howard Ogden from Augment Reality

The Rolling Stones layer is worlds first augmented reality campaign by a major rockband. How does it feels to create such a layer for these rock legends?Being a music aficionado, and British, of course the Rolling Stones have been a big part of my life. To be asked to create a layer for them was a huge privilege. Everything had to be perfect – as by all accounts getting approval from Mick Jagger and his management is not a walk in the park. So, throughout a series of meetings at the Universal / Polydor HQ in London we developed this concept and had many discussions on the future of AR in the music industry. The app is a first on so many levels:

1st to use AR for music sales (identify iPhone handsets and offer a direct link to Exile on Main St. on iTunes)

1st to use AWS as a hosting environment for massive scalability.

and the one we’re most proud of: 1st project to be given approval by Mick almost instantly!! (”unheard of”)

The Rolling Stones layer will be filled with user generated content, therefore you decided to build a Facebook app which is connected to the layer. Can you tell us something more about this?

The Rolling Stones have over 1.4 million Facebook fans so it was a great resource to tap into for UGC. We first realized we could use FB to do this in August last year; long before this project was conceived – it’s taken a while for us to find such a forward-thinking client with good reason to commission the project. I’m sure it wont be the last layar/FB crossover we see.

How do you scale these big projects when it comes to work and traffic towards these high value layers?For sure we had to think big. So, the only option to consider was a cloud-based infrastructure, especially since there are a lot of audio and video assets within Exile on Your Street. We implemented a load-balanced Amazon Web Service ready to cope with the upsurge in demand expected when the announcement was made on the RS fan wall. We are happy to say that Exile has enjoyed 100% uptime.

What can we expected from Augment Reality in the near future?The Exile on Your Street app generated quite a buzz, which, in turn, is keeping us very busy! As always we keep up to date with the very latest API changes within Layar in order to get the absolute maximum out of this platform. We plan to consolidate our position as one of the leading Layar development companies with branch office openings in US and Europe. Very exciting times.

Today Hoppala, one of the members of the Layar Partner Network, launched a tool called Augmentation. Augmentation provides an easy way for non-technical creatives to start experimenting with Augmented Reality on Layar.

HOPPALA! Augmentation comes with a full screen map interface to place and edit augments all around the world. Upload your images and icons, audio, video and 3D multimedia content with just some mouse clicks and add it to your personalized inventory in the cloud. HOPPALA! Augmentation even does the hosting for you. It simply runs in your browser, there’s no software installation required and no coding needed at all. We talked to Marc Rene Gardeya from Hoppala.

Why did you create augmentation on top of Layars API?HOPPALA! Augmentation started as an internal test tool. The more layers we built, the more we needed to test certain use cases and scenarios. It turned out to be pretty unhandy to manually edit some source code everytime we wanted to check the effect of some parameter changes. So we created a graphical user interface. During that time we met a lot of people who told us they would so much like to step into AR and Layar but just don’t know how to do it technically. Our goal was to open AR content creation to non-technical people.Why should non-technical people use your tools, next to the fact that it’s easy?With HOPPALA! Augmentation non-technical people can concentrate on their strengths and just be creative. That’s why HOPPALA! Augmentation provides all the multimedia features supported by Layar, e.g. audio, video and 3D. Finally there is no more technical hurdle in the way. Everybody can create an account and start experimenting immediately. And it’s free!

What do you expect of augmentation in terms of layers created by non-technical people?HOPPALA! Augmentation opens up the augmented reality community to a much wider audience and encourages engagement of creatives from different industries. I’m very excited to see creatives contributing a very new spin. Opening doors for non-techs will certainly enrich and speed up the overall content creation progress. HOPPALA! Augmentation is the incubator for a whole lot of new ideas in Augmented Reality.

Yes, we reached another milestone. Last week we reached the mark of 1000 published layers. We would like to thank all developers who are making this possible and published all their layers over the past year. Unfortunately not everybody can publish the 1000th layer and the lucky one who published it, is SystemK. We talked to Scott Halcomb from SystemK.

Scott, congratulations you’ve published the 1000th layer. Can you tell us something about this layer?

Layarで記念撮影’ allows users in Japan to showcase their artistic abilities by placing their own 2D and 3D images into this social layer. By visiting this special website Japanese users can learn all about how to create 2D and 3D objects specifically for Layar.

Step by step guides walk users through the production process and an easy to use uploader lets anyone place their creations into the layer. Initially this layer has been populated by some of the creative characters designed for prefectural institutions around Japan. Visitors to these areas can experience the creativity of local designers by taking pictures along with the famous characters.

Ultimately though, ‘Layarで記念撮影’ encourages users to be inventive and design their own characters and works of art. Soon, user generated 2D and 3D experiences could start popping up into the stream of Layar user’s all over the world.

Why did SystemK choose Layar as the platform to develop on?It is exciting to work on projects that are the first of their kind and are on the cutting edge of technology. With Layar SystemK is able to provide users with brand new experiences that can be both informational and entertaining.

Could you tell us something about the usage of layer in JP?Layar is being used in all sorts of different ways in Japan. Our tourism layers and several of our discovery layers have been well received. The layer used to debut an album last year was a huge success. We also continue to see steady growth in our layer populated by user generated content.

Any future plans when it comes to layer development?We are currently testing some fantastic 3D content for a partner in real estate that wants to pre-visualize building construction. Also, we have a layer for enterprise use in the works for a major Japanese gas company.

We’re looking forward to see these layers published.

We would like to thank Scott and SystemK for all their published layers and maybe you’re the developer who publish the 2000th layer.

People all around the world share their adventures using Mobypicture to all their social networks. From their mobile phone they easily upload photos, video and audio to their friends on networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, their blog and numerous other social sites and services.

Why build a layer on top of MobyPictures APIRemco: The Moby layer lets you explore the latest picture and video postings of other Moby users nearest to you. You can view the content through the mobile phones’ camera in Augmented Reality, or on a map and there is a List view. Clicking the content gives you more info (comments etc.) and options; the routing how to get to the spot where the picture was taken and a link to the content on the Mobypicture website, where the user can get more info and leave a comment themselves.

In which way is this layer an added value for the services of MobyPictureRemco: The layer proposition is a powerful solution to engage visitors of events and exploration of brand related content, bringing realtime experiences to like minded people instantly.

What can we expect in the near future from TAB worldmediaRemco: Today we launched the first brand extension of the Moby layer for Rabobank Tour de France. This branded Mobypicture layer is part of the MobyNow solution, the social media content aggregation platform Mobypicture recently launched as a managed service helping publishers and brands to regain control of the social media conversation.

The Branded RaboNow layer lets you explore the content around you in augmented reality. Showing you the latest photo and video Mobypicture postings and Twitter updates of the Rabosport Cycling teams and those of the Press and all Fans, nearest to you. The Layer shows all the location tagged content of the realtime platform Rabosport Now.